


dungeon bats

by bluehasnoclues



Series: harry potter oneshots [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Harry, Hogwarts First Year, Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 23:42:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17395952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehasnoclues/pseuds/bluehasnoclues
Summary: Severus held a grudging respect for Harry Potter, the blind boy who was objectively and unequivocally brilliant at Potions.





	dungeon bats

Anyone less practiced might not have seen it.

The boy moved with a sort of fluidity, almost inhuman in nature, smoothly transitioning through steps with a precision and efficiency rarely seen before full Mastery. 

His ingredients were laid out in near piles in front of him, all within reach but carefully separated. He never kept two items close enough to each other that they might mix and contaminate and subsequently ruin the entirety of the potion. Any mistake meant hours of work, Vanished. 

He didn't so much as look at the instructions. Severus had originally thought it was arrogance, but when the boy produced a perfect potion by simply listening to his brief dictates at the front of the class… the first time it was happened, Severus assumed it was luck. The Potion wasn’t difficult to make — but the care necessary quelled many beginning students. 

And the boy’s perfect results continued. Every class, though sometimes it would take him longer than his peers, he produced what could almost be called a work of art. His processes were sometimes different; once, Severus found him adding six drops of salamander blood instead of four, but the boy used three frog eyes to counteract the effects. It cut his brewing time in half and was still not even a shade off, when even Draco Malfoy — the godson he’d tutored  _ personally _ — produced a Potion a touch darker and thicker than it should have been. 

The boy was undoubtedly a natural. 

He didn’t use a timer, either; while many others cast a  _ tempus _ to keep track of how long they would have to wait, the boy would wait nearly to the second before nodding his head slightly and continuing on. It was fascinating to watch.

Merlin, Severus had even caught him  _ sniffing _ his ingredients, wafting the fumes of the Potion back towards him (clever, because if he’d held his face directly over his cauldron, he wouldn’t have much of a face left to work with) and testing his product that way.

He never took notes in class, but he certainly looked like he was paying attention. His handwriting was odd; not quite unreadable, but his quill never left his page, even between words. Every essay looked like a first draft, but nothing was crossed out as it was like in his peers’; instead, ink swelled in certain places, as if he had had to pause and collect his thoughts before continuing, but did not think to lift his quill. 

The boy was assuredly his own person.

And, somewhat unsurprisingly, he always worked alone. It was technically against Severus’ rules, but it was never something explicitly stated, and the boy with a partner meant something always went up in flames. 

It was the strangest phenomena. The boy’s seeming innate talent was nowhere to be found when he was working with a partner. He tripped over himself, sweeping his ingredients onto the floor with careless moves and jerky motions. Severus had only paired him with another student thrice; that, he had discovered, was  _ more _ than enough to ensure he left the boy to his own devices. 

It truly was the most bizarre experience in all of Severus’ years of teaching, and of those, there were many. But oddly enough, he didn’t think much on it after the first month.

Severus only truly began to question the boy’s oddities at the first of many Hogwarts annual staff meeting; meant to be used for sharing class curriculums and concerns about students, the meetings always inevitably dissolved into schoolyard gossip between adults. 

Severus had always thought it a painful waste of several hours of his precious time, time where he could be doing  _ anything _ else, until at this meeting, a certain student was brought to their attention, one of whom Severus had already accepted as simply unique: Harry Potter. 

“He’s a natural,” Filius said in an almost-whisper, voice filled with something akin to awe. “He never takes notes, but his essays are impeccable, and his raw  _ power _ … it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in a first-year.”

“He doesn’t use the proper wand movements,” Minerva said. “I saw him try, at the beginning of the term, and everything was a bit off, but now he just says the incantation and it  _ happens _ . He’s one of first every time.”

“T-truly st-st-stunning,” Quirinus agreed, but had a slight frown on his face. “D-does he t-take notes i-i-in your class?”

“Never,” said Minerva. “Pomona? Severus?”

“He doesn’t have much of a green thumb,” the Herbology teacher said thoughtfully, “but he does well on his own.”

“He’s a disgrace to his year when working with others,” said Severus. “But… individually, he’s… impressive.”

The rest of the room gaped at him. Was it truly so rare that he compliment a student? (Yes, he supposed, it really was.)

“He can be a bit absentminded, sometimes,” Filius said, frowning slightly. “Just yesterday, I had to stop him from walking off of one of the moving staircases.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that as well,” Minerva said. 

The subject eventually died, as they always did, but Severus didn’t stop thinking.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, he held Potter back after class.

“You’re blind,” Severus said calmly. Potter’s expression didn’t change. 

“Not in the way that matters,” was the boy’s bland response, and Severus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “Is there a problem with my work, sir?” 

They both knew there wasn’t. Pretending, it seemed, was ingrained deeply in both of them, but it would do no good to further lie on this matter. Potter was an exceptional student; denying that fact would be asinine. 

And so Severus let him go.


End file.
